Die for the Flame (22 page)

Ranna sat up in her bed, trying to awaken and gather her thoughts in the dark. Soon came the sound of pounding horses’ hooves, the smell of fire, the screams of women and children, and the shouts of men.
She scrambled out of her blankets and rushed outside into the chaos of houses burning and smoking, dashing horses, and people running in every direction to escape. A great roar of voices cascaded across the village as if everyone were shouting at the top of their lungs at once. Blue-clad bowmen rode through the village, shooting their arrows into anyone who appeared in the dim light of early morning. Peering through the smoke, Ranna saw the line of horses galloping shoulder to shoulder, men astride with their deadly lances pointed inward, charging through the village. Grasslanders! Karran! A great roar burst from the throats of the Grasslanders as they streamed around the houses impaling people as they ran. Some Kobani warriors and women stood firing arrows into the incoming ranks, but they were soon overridden.

Ranna looked desperately for somewhere to hide. A spooked horse streaked by, and she tried unsuccessfully to catch the reins. She ran back into her house, but it was now ablaze and filled with smoke. She grabbed a large, silver-handled knife and darted back outside. The air everywhere was blanketed in smoke, and it was difficult to see where she could run to escape. Her house was set close to a low hill, so she ran through the smoke dodging riders and slipping around other burning houses until she felt the ground rise upward. She ran hard, her lungs full of choking smoke, the cries of dying people behind her, and the roar of the burning houses fueled now by a breeze off the plains. Suddenly two Grasslanders appeared before her on horseback. She turned away from them, not breaking stride as one fitted an arrow into his bow, aimed, and shot, the arrow burying itself in her back.

The impact knocked her down, but she was quickly up and running again. The second rider kicked his horse into action and within a few strides was upon her. She saw him over her shoulder and turned to face him, drawing her knife. The lance drove into her, and she collapsed as the rider pulled his lance out of her body and then turned his horse and rode down the hill into the boiling fray.

Orlan dismounted from his horse on a hill overlooking the burning village. The wind cleared the smoke from the burned-out skin houses, and the sun jumped up into the sky, as it can in the plains. He could see far off to one side his riders gathering up the horse herd. He knew the cattle herd would be farther out, and a small force would be sent to round it up for the drive back to Karran land. He had sent scouts out in every direction to protect against a surprise attack.

Horses were hitched to Kobani wagons, and weapons and other items of use were being loaded onto them. Orlan knew this village as the one he had come to trade in with his father for many years, and it saddened him that it had all come to this. Someone called his name from below, and he walked toward the caller, cupping his hand behind his ear to hear better over the dim.

He waved his approval, having heard the request, and kept walking along the high ground. There were few bodies on this hill. He skirted one, and as he did, he glanced down and saw that it was a woman. As he was about to lift his eyes away, he saw gold beads intertwined in braids that lay across the face of the downed woman, who was curled on her side. They glistened in the sunlight as if beckoning him, but he mentally shrugged off the memory of something he couldn’t quite recall. He took another step and then turned back and bent down on one knee beside the woman and brushed the fallen hair from her face. He looked at the beads in her hair.
Could it be?
he wondered.

The eyes opened, glazed in pain, and tried to focus on Orlan’s face. Orlan could see fear pass through them and then resignation. A groan escaped her lips, and Orlan could see the arrow in her back and a great pool of blood on the front of her where her hands were clasped.

“Ranna?”

“Orlan.”

He reached in and pulled her blood-soaked tunic away from the wound and saw a deep puncture into her shoulder above the heart where the lance had entered. He saw the broken arrow shaft protruding from her back. He pulled a scarf from around his neck and placed it against the wound. She closed her eyes.

He ran down the hill to where a wagon was being loaded, commandeered it, leaped up into the seat, and drove the horses up the hill to where Ranna lay. Clearing a place in the wagon, he piled skins and blankets up as a cushion. He then hurried to Ranna and lifted her and carried her to the wagon, where he placed her gently in the bed he had made. He covered her with skins, hiding her from the eyes of his soldiers, for he knew they would kill her if they knew she was there.

He notified his officers that he was returning home to the ferry for a rest and gave orders for the soldiers to return to their homes, confident that the Kobani would not attack again for some time after such a disastrous defeat. Several tried to argue with him. They couldn’t understand why he suddenly had to leave for home.

He drove the wagon up a rough trail that followed the river north toward the ferry, leaving the Kobani village behind, along with some perplexed Grasslanders. His horse was tied to the back of the wagon and trailed along behind. A band of soldiers rode with him for several hours and then broke off and headed northeast.

A short distance further and certain he was alone at last, he pulled the horses up and tended to Ranna. The arrow wound was painful but had not penetrated past the ribs in her back. Ranna fainted as he removed the arrow and cleansed the wound. He then opened her shirt and cleansed the deeper wound from the javelin that had cut into her shoulder. He covered the wound in a salve and wrapped it in clean cloth. Ranna was running a high fever, and he cooled her forehead and made her drink water. Though the wagon trip was uncomfortable, he feared being caught out in the open not only by marauding Kobani but by Grasslander soldiers, who would not hesitate to kill Ranna. He gave the horses little rest, traveling day and night and stopping only when he judged the horses could go no further without foundering. After several days, he finally came in sight of the ferry and his house on the hill. The ferry had been shut down in his absence and the house shuttered up tightly. It had not been disturbed.

Orlan carried Ranna into the house and put her in his bed. He attended to his exhausted horses and returned to treat the wounds and prepare soup for Ranna. Ranna was near death, but by the fourth day, her fever broke, and she slept, exhausted. He spoon-fed her a chicken broth made from one of the chickens running wild outside the house, and she smiled at him and slipped back to sleep. As the days progressed, she improved dramatically and gave him instructions on preparing salves for her wounds, which were now healing. Soon she was up and moving about the house with stiffness and caution, but she was alert. Her appetite returned, and Orlan prepared foods to strengthen her, including fresh fish from the river and vegetables from the garden, which had become overrun with weeds.

Orlan checked his ferry and prepared it for travelers, but none came because of the fighting. Several times each day he climbed a nearby rise and scanned the Grasslands for some sign of Kobani or any riders, but none appeared. It was not until a week later that two of his soldiers rode in to check on him. He hid Ranna in the bedroom and took their reports. The Kobani had signaled that they wanted to talk, and one of the other Grassland leaders had met with them, and a truce was now in effect. According to the soldiers, the Kobani agreed not to raid the Karran Grasslands and to stay within their own traditional territory. The Grasslanders agreed not to send punitive raids into Kobani country. A meeting was to be scheduled to reach a final treaty. The war, at least for now, was over.

The soldiers were anxious to get home, and they did not tarry long, but fed and watered their horses, ate a quick meal fixed by Orlan, and with fond farewells rode back into the Grasslands to the east.

Orlan helped Ranna, still weak and her ribs and shoulder painful, to a chair by the fire that night, and he told her in his broken Kobani that the war had ended. She nodded and then cried into her hands. Orlan made her some tea and sat close to her. The wind had picked up outside, and the trees slapped at the side of the house. One could hear the rushing of the river just down the embankment from the house.

“You will take me back?” asked Ranna.

Orlan did not answer right away. He gazed at this tall, slender, pretty girl whom he had known one day each year since he was a boy. Her long, black hair, without the twisted braids, hung loose over her shoulders. The large black eyes and long eyelashes and full lips, the dark skin and the blue tattoo on her forehead, so foreign to a stranger, looked perfectly normal to Orlan.

“I will not take you back.”

“How will I get home?”

“I want you to stay here.”

Her eyes grew larger, and her lips opened in surprise. “What does that mean, Orlan?”

He reached out and took her hands in his and then laid his cheek upon them. She withdrew a hand and placed it gently on his head, running her fingers through his hair. He knelt before her, and she nestled her face into his neck. The fire crackled, and its warmth radiated out to Orlan and Ranna, though they no longer needed it, as they whispered words of endearment to each other in two languages.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

R
anna healed and took over the management of the house, and Orlan made repairs to the ferry and once again, since the war had ended in a truce, travelers began appearing at the river to buy passage to the other side. Traders from Karran crossed over to trade in the land of the Madasharan, and herdsmen from Madasharan traveled to Karran driving choice cattle and horses to trade in the grassland towns.

In the spring, a priest of the Flame from Madasharan arrived at the ferry on his way to the Citadel, along with a horse trader and a farmer. Orlan and Ranna were married on the banks of the great river in the presence of these strangers. No one there had ever witnessed or heard of a Karran marrying a Kobani, but none having seen the loveliness of the dark-skinned bride and the love fair Orlan expressed for her could doubt that it was a grand thing.

In the warmth of the evening, too late for travelers to ring the bell for a crossing, Orlan and Ranna would pack food and ride out to one of many beautiful springs in the Grasslands where the crystal-clear water would gather in deep pools surrounded by low-lying willows with drooping branches. They would swim in the cold water and then warm themselves by a fire, enjoy their food, and lie upon a blanket entwined in each other’s arms.

Early winter saw Orlan’s sister, Helan, now widowed, come to join them at the ferry. She was a plump and merry woman, fair like Orlan and older by fifteen years, and she accepted Ranna without reservation. She had been living in a village alone not far from the Citadel, her husband having been killed in the Great War. After she sent a letter to Orlan asking after him, he had invited her to the ferry cottage, with Ranna’s agreement. She became like a mother to both of them.

In the late winter just before spring of the following year, Ranna and Orlan’s baby was born. After much discussion, he was named Clarian Selu. In Karran, Clarian meant “he who is pure,” and Selu in Kobani meant, roughly translated, “one who loves.” The parents were delighted in the strong child with brown hair, big blue eyes, and dusky skin. Helan was overjoyed and became a grandmother to the boy. The house was happy with the cries and the gurgling sounds of the newborn.

Orlan rebuilt the ferry to carry the larger loads of travelers and their wagons and animals as peace returned to the land. He added a barn for the horses and a milk cow and plowed fields to create a farm. With the growing family, he extended what was a cottage into a large house with rooms for Helan and Clarian. By the time Clarian was twelve, he was able to help with much of the work, starting early in the morning and finishing late as the sun faded in the west.

Almost every day a traveler would come to the ferry, and Ranna and Helan would most often feed him, and if it was late, the traveler would be allowed to bed down in the barn. Helan mothered Ranna, and they became inseparable, and both of them lavished attention on Orlan and Clarian. They watched with grave concern while, on ever more frequent occasions, as Clarian got bigger, Orlan would take him out on hunting trips to practice the use of weapons.

Helan taught Clarian to read and write in the Karran language, and Ranna taught him to read the symbols used in the Kobani language. Ranna and Orlan developed a spoken language mixing Karran and Kobani, which Helan never fully learned. This frustrated her at times, but Clarian understood perfectly, being fluent in both languages.

Ranna conveyed as much of Kobani culture as she knew to Clarian, including the myths, legends, stories, and songs taught to the young. She did not pass on the deep distrust of strangers and the warlike personality that was instilled in young Kobani warriors. She had adapted easily to her new life and only occasionally missed the nomadic journeys to seek out new grasslands for the grazing animals. After the end of hostilities, Ranna prevailed upon Orlan to forego the trade he had conducted with the Kobani for years each spring. The steady stream of travelers waiting to be ferried across the river was sufficient to provide them with a good living.

Years of peace between the Karran Grasslanders and the Kobani passed without incident until an errant band of Karran cattle wandered near a Kobani camp and was promptly gathered up by the Kobani. An angry Karran herdsman followed the trail of the cattle and came upon the Kobani camp. He demanded his cattle back, and the young warriors refused. Since neither could speak the other’s language, it was a confusing and heated conversation.

The herdsman left without his cattle, but two days later he arrived with a group of Grasslanders and attempted to recapture his cattle and drive them back into Karran lands. Arrows flew, and men fell, and so began the second Grassland War. The Kobani, having bottled up and unable to expand northward for years, burst out of their territories and began raiding farms, running off horses and cattle from herdsmen and burning towns. The Grasslanders retaliated, and the killing on both sides was high.

Orlan was again called to lead the Grasslanders against the Kobani, and he decided to take thirteen-year-old Clarian with him to fight. Because men were scarce in the Grasslands, it was not uncommon to see young boys in the ranks riding big, fast horses and carrying bows slung over their shoulders, an occasional girl or young woman next to them.

Ranna was deeply pained by the war and remained fearful for her two men. Helan comforted her and did her best to keep the household going. Orlan hired a man too old to fight to work the ferry, although with the fighting, many travelers preferred to stay out of the Grasslands. The fighting was fiercest during the summer months when the grass was rich and tall and the weather fair.

The Kobani drove their herds north out of the plains and moved their camps onto the edges of the Great Grasslands, provoking the Grasslanders. The war evolved into raids by fast-traveling war parties that would dash in to attack a town or camp, drive off livestock, and kill as many as possible. The Karran preferred to fight a defensive war and avoid riding into Kobani lands because the Kobani were so skilled at ambushes. Orlan was the only Karran leader who would regularly march deep into Kobani territory and attack a sleeping camp, causing mayhem among the Kobani, who were so feared that they did not have to worry about setting out sentries and scouts. So began Clarian’s training as a youthful warrior against a formidable foe in a war that required courage and intelligence more than sheer strength. The war continued for more than seven years.

Clarian remembered vividly the dark-hour as he came over the rise carrying his father’s body, the horses bobbing their heads in fatigue. Standing on a mound by the garden plot above the cottage was a lone figure. He did not see her until he was close to the house. It was Ranna. She had been awakened by a dreadful dream.

Clarian buried his father next to his grandfather above the river the following afternoon. He built a fire for his mother by the gravesite and kept it fueled through the night as she keened and chanted sacred words and cried. By dawn she was spent, and she retired to her room, refusing to come out for days. Helan could get her to eat nothing. Clarian stoically threw himself into his work, repairing the ferry, plowing a new field and hardening his heart. Men came some days later, and he rode out, still a boy, his bow over his shoulder, his quiver full, to take vengeance on the Kobani.

In the end, both sides lost many in the cross-border attacks and counterattacks. In time, Clarian rose to the rank of commander, leading hundreds of Grasslanders in raids and ambushes against the Kobani. Respect for his cunning became legendary among the Grasslanders, and the Kobani learned his name and feared his devastating incursions into their heartland.

At the peace meeting, which took place under an awning in a field on the outskirts of Elan, Clarian signed the truce for the Grasslanders next to the symbols on the paper signed by a Kobani warrior named Memanya.

The Kobani chieftains conferred openly with one another in the presence of Clarian and the other Grassland leaders, never suspecting that Clarian understood every word. He never let on that he spoke their language and easily countered their demands where they conflicted with Grasslander interests. Inwardly, he smiled to himself as he tried his best to forge a fair and lasting treaty. There was no shaking of hands. After a nod of the head and steely-eyed looks, the Kobani swiftly mounted their horses and dashed off into the tall grass, gone from sight in a matter of moments.

Clarian led a packhorse loaded with supplies and gifts as he and Ranna ventured south into Kobani lands. The day became overcast and gloomy, and a cold wind came off the Grasslands and whipped at their cloaks. Around her neck, Ranna wore a heavy silver chain from which hung a silver disc decorated with colored stones, signifying that she was a healer and medicine woman.

Ranna knew that the Kobani might not accept her back after all these years and would not readily accept her half-breed son, Clarian Selu. Nevertheless, Clarian had said the journey must be attempted, and he intended to go by himself alone, since he spoke the language, but Ranna knew that he would have little chance of success, and the journey might end in Clarian’s death at the hands of the war-prone Kobani. So she prevailed in convincing him that they would go together, and now as they rode toward her home country, she felt a stirring of excitement and nostalgia to see her people again.

Like any grown son, Clarian resisted Ranna’s instructions for the trip but gave in when she stamped her foot in frustration. She braided his hair in the Kobani manner with red cord and red beads. Though Clarian had little of the darkness of his mother and had brown hair rather than black, it was clear that he was his mother’s son and with the braids and clothes, he looked very much like a Kobani.

Around his neck he wore the violet stone talisman on a silver chain. He had donned a black shirt cut in the Kobani fashion and black pants with red piping down the seam, tucked into soft black leather boots. He carried a Kobani knife in his belt and a short Kobani sword buckled around his waist. Over his shoulder was slung a bow and a quiver full of arrows, and a lance was tied to his saddle.

His thoughts were drifting through his mind like leaves scattering before a breeze: first scenes from the war that just ended with the Maggan, then his visit to the Madasharan people, and now the journey to the Kobani.
How would it go?
he wondered as he watched his mother ride effortlessly next to him. Would the Kobani welcome them with open arms? He doubted that. Would they accept his mother back among them? Maybe, but maybe not. Would they accept him as the son of Kobani woman and a Karran man? Ranna said she had never heard of a Kobani marrying a Karran or anyone from another tribe of people.

The Kobani were an insular people and had little tolerance for others. But Ranna was a healer, a medicine woman, and they had a great respect for that. Clarion had to take the chance, but he worried that this venture might put his mother at risk. The horses were fresh and full of energy, and Clarian and Ranna gave them their heads. Small, yellow-winged birds of the plains scattered out of the brush by the side of the trail, fluttering up and away and then dipping into the protective long grass on either side. To the left, the Grasslands rolled away as far as the eye could see, but on their right, marshes extended to the river, which ran fast and loud a stone’s throw away.

Clarian did not expect to run into travelers, but he remained alert just the same. No one normally traveled this way, for it led south toward the great river delta and its swamps, where only a few hardy marsh dweller clans lived and fished for a living. It was always possible that a band of Kobani could be traveling north, but none had been reported to have left their open grassy plains country for some time. The Kobani and the Karran were at peace.

They camped at dark, and Clarian erected a tent for his mother in a hidden glade with a spring, and he picketed the horses in the trees. Ruttu nuzzled him as he pulled off her saddle, and he scratched her neck playfully. Clarian told Ranna there would be no fire. They ate dried meat and drank clear spring water and then rolled into their blankets. Clarian slept out under the trees, so that he could hear if someone approached during the night.

He was up before dawn watering the horses. By the time he had them saddled, Ranna had dropped the tent and folded it up and was ready for Clarian to load the packhorse. In a short time, they started off, away from the river into a series of low hills that separated the Grasslands from the grassy plains of the Kobani. As the gray clouds overhead broke apart to show a blue sky, he followed a faint trail that he and his father had traveled years ago when trading with the Kobani, the very same one that Orlan had used to bring Ranna out so long ago.

The sun was cradling on the horizon as Clarian and Ranna halted their horses on one of the last hills where the land dropped down and flattened out into an expansive plain of knee-high grass that stretched in an endless green panorama to the south.

Far in the distance they saw scattered clumps of willow trees that broke the monotony of the plain and suggested water holes or springs or brooks. Clarian shaded his eyes against the brightness of the setting sun, looking for a column of smoke rising from a cooking fire or a dark cluster of horses far in the distance, but the land appeared empty.

“We will camp here tonight, Mother. After it’s dark, we’ll be able to spot any camp fires, should ‘the people’ be camping nearby,” he said in the Kobani language, referring to the Kobani as “the people,” which was how the Kobani referred to themselves.

“As I remember, we were always far to the south until late in the spring, and then we drove the animals north, where the grass was better at that time of year. There was always more rain here,” she said.

He pitched the tent behind the hill and built a small fire, and Ranna heated dried meat and vegetables in a small metal pot. Ranna was lost in her thoughts and did not speak during the meal. Clarian was concerned about being discovered and surprised by Kobani warriors before he had a chance to make a proper entrance. Night fell swiftly, and faint stars appeared but no moon. After the meal, he poured dirt over the fire and extinguished it. He said good night to his mother and walked to the top of the hill and sat there, looking out into the dusk of the plains. He saw no firelight in the distance. He wrapped himself in his blanket and dozed off. During the night he sat up several times and scanned the dark land but saw nothing. He must have been awakened by the change in the direction of the wind, now blowing northerly and warmer than the wind of the Grasslands and carrying a sweet fragrance. The skyline lightened to the east. A few birds chirped, and he heard one of his horses stamp a hoof. He rose to begin another long day of traveling.